Camera Obscura - Whangarei!

The Camera Obscura Sculpture Project – Whangarei

To build an 8m Weathering steel sculpture, within which is a Camera Obscura.

This interactive sculptural structure, looking at Whangarei’s award winning Te Matau ā Pohe Bascule Bridge and sited on The Hatea Loop walk, uses CCTV technology to connect to the world via the web. Entering the dramatic structure to arrive in a camera obscura room, the viewer experiences the Bridge and its environment in a new way. The design reflects the Hatea river and Whangarei-te-rerenga-parāoa maritime history.

History of The Camera Obscura

Camera Obscura (Latin for "dark room") is an optical device that led to photography and the photographic camera.

The Camera Obscura device consists of a box or room with a hole in one side. Light from an external scene passes through the hole and strikes a surface inside, where it is reproduced, inverted (thus upside-down), but with colour and perspective preserved.

The earliest written record of the Camera Obscura is to be found in the writings of Mozi (470 to 390 BC), a Chinese philosopher and the founder of Mohism. Mozi correctly asserted that the image in a Camera Obscura is flipped upside down because light travels in straight lines from its source. As the pinhole is made smaller, the image gets sharper, but the projected image becomes dimmer.